This is an always agreeable and occasionally shrewd account (Dent,
6s.) of America as seen by a young _German girl. The fictional thread is rather thin, but the types, if almost all " nice people," are not too stiff to be plausible. The clash of ideas and social customs is not worked out in any detail and most of the jokes are about various forms of psychological rehabilitation, which is appropriate as the ideal year of the letters is 1923, the year that M. Cone toured the United States. There is also a good deal of praise for the Philadelphia Quakers and one or two apocryphal pieces of historical information. After all, Mayflower' descent is not, or should- pot be, at: Fifernium in PhiladelpIii, and the Odd- -theory about the Declaration of _Independence advanced on page 116 goes too far even for a novel. " Sir," said Dr. Johnson, " in .order to be facetious it is not necessary to be indecent." But despite the possibilities of the theme of amorome misunderstandings (worked out not at all in the manner of .M. Bedel), there is no other indecency, although the young heroine finds that therb is something to be said for American freedom in such matters. No doubt there it is, but it was a shrewd young German girl (happily settled in America and determined never to return to live in the Fatherland) who confided that there was one thrill she treasured that no " Anglo-Saxon " girl. could ever know the delight of the first moment when a-younk man says "'Du."
Previous page
